Romans 1:30,31

“ Whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters. ”

The dispositions expressed in the six terms of this group are those of which pride is the centre. There is no reason for reducing them to four, as Hofmann would, by making the second term the epithet of the first, and the fourth that of the third; this does not suit the rapidity of the enumeration and the need of accumulating terms. Ψιθυριστής, whisperer, the man who pours his poison against his neighbor by whispering into the ear; κατάλαλος, the man who blackens publicly; θεοστυγής signifies, in the two classical passages where it is found (Euripides), hated of God, and Meyer therefore contends that the passive sense ought to be preserved here, while generalizing it; the name would thus signify all hardened malefactors. But this general meaning is impossible in an enumeration in which the sense of each term is limited by that of all the rest. The active signification: hating God, is therefore the only suitable one; it is the highest manifestation of pride, which cannot brook the thought of this superior and judge; one might say: the most monstrous form of calumny (the malediction of Providence); Suidas and CEcumenius, two writers nearer the living language than we, thought they could give to this word the active signification, a fact which justifies it sufficiently. To insolence toward God (the sin of ὕβρις among the Greeks) there is naturally joined insult offered to men: ὑβριστής, insolent, despiteful. The term ὑπερήφανος (from ὑπέρ, φαίνομαι), proud, designates the man who, from a feeling of his own superiority, regards others with haughtiness; while ἀλαζών, boaster, denotes the man who seeks to attract admiration by claiming advantages he does not really possess.

Vv. 30b, 31. “ Inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without tenderness, without pity. ”

The last group refers to the extinction of all the natural feelings of humanity, filial affection, loyalty, tenderness, and pity. It includes six terms. The first, inventors of evil things, denotes those who pass their lives meditating on the evil to be done to others; so Antiochus Epiphanes is called by the author of 2 Macc. (2Ma 7:31), πάσης κακίας εὑρετής, and Sejanus by Tacitus, facinorum repertor. People of this stamp have usually begun to betray their bad character in the bosom of their families they have been disobedient to their parents. ᾿Ασύνετος, without understanding, denotes the man who is incapable of lending an ear to wise counsel; thus understood, it has a natural connection with the previous term; Hofmann cites Psalms 32:8-9. ᾿Ασύνθετος, which many translate irreconcilable, can hardly have this meaning, for the verb from which it comes does not signify to reconcile, but to decide in common, and hence to make a treaty. The adjective therefore describes the man who without scruple violates the contracts he has signed, the faithless man. ῎Αστοργος, without tenderness, from στέργειν, to cherish, caress, foster; this word denotes the destruction even of the feelings of natural tenderness, as is seen in a mother who exposes or kills her child, a father who abandons his family, or children who neglect their aged parents. If the following word in the T. R., ἀσπόνδους, truce-breakers, were authentic, its meaning would be confounded with that of ἀσυνθέτους, rightly understood. ᾿Ανελεήμων, without pity, is closely connected with the preceding ἀστόργους, without tenderness; but its meaning is more general. It refers not only to tender feelings within the family circle; here it calls up before the mind the entire population of the great cities flocking to the circus to behold the fights of gladiators, frantically applauding the effusion of human blood, and gloating over the dying agonies of the vanquished combatant. Such is an example of the unspeakable hardness of heart to which the whole society of the Gentile world descended. What would it have come to if a regenerating breath had not at this supreme moment passed over it? It is in this last group that the fact which the apostle is concerned to bring out is most forcibly emphasized, that of a divine judgment manifesting itself in this state of things. In fact, we have no more before us iniquities which can be explained by a simple natural egoism. They are enormities which are as unnatural as the infamies described above as the punishment of heathenism. Thus is proved the abandonment of men to a mind void of discernment (the ἀδόκιμος νοῦς of Romans 1:28).